Daniel Craig introduces new Range Rover at New York Auto Show

Actor Daniel Craig attends the all-new Range Rover Sport reveal on March 26, 2013 in New York City.

PHOTO: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

Actor Daniel Craig attends the all-new Range Rover Sport reveal on March 26, 2013 in New York City.

PHOTO: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

Actor Daniel Craig attends the all-new Range Rover Sport reveal on March 26, 2013 in New York City.

PHOTO: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

Actor Daniel Craig attends the all-new Range Rover Sport reveal on March 26, 2013 in New York City.

PHOTO: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

Actor Daniel Craig attends the all-new Range Rover Sport reveal on March 26, 2013 in New York City.

PHOTO: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images

Actor Daniel Craig unveiled the All-New Range Rover Sport with a live drive through the streets of New York.

PHOTO: Handout, Land Rover

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: March 27, 2013

SMALL

MEDIUM

LARGE

If pomp and circumstance are any harbinger of success, then the automotive industry is finally back on firm footing. At the very least, New York’s most recent International Auto Show really does cement the fact that this is Land Rover’s time in the sun.

Said pomp and circumstance was the event of the show, which saw James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, drive the company’s brand new Range Rover Sport from a Brooklyn shipping yard to downtown Manhattan (all captured in a short film streamed live on the Internet) before depositing it on the stage of the James A. Farley Post Office building on West 33rd.

Mr. Craig didn’t smile and there was absolutely no repelling down buildings or jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Indeed, 007 seemed very uncomfortable in the limelight (either that or he was in full Skyfall sulk). He was on stage but a moment, made no profound statements and, other than a couple of mentions in the speechifying that followed, Mr. Craig’s presence was extremely muted.

Nonetheless, New York’s glitterati turned out in full crush for a glimpse at his Saville Row-covered pecs, the scramble for a ringside seat only mitigated by the burly bodyguards protecting his majesty’s finest (of course, that brings up the questions why Bond, James Bond, needs protection from portly paparazzi and stick-thin fashionistas yet is somehow impervious to the evil entreaties of Javier Bardem, now officially the baddest man in the planet). The place was positively resplendent in former football players (Michael Strahan, now host of Live! Kelly and Michael), international soccer stars (Thierry Henry of the New York Red Bulls) and minor models (none of whose names I know or care about).

It was all such a New York moment. Main arteries were closed (much honking of horns could be heard inside the Farley building) with impatient cops directing even more pissed off cabbies through now thoroughly snarled downtown traffic. New Yorkers, ever the star gazers, packed the streets like it was the Queen’s Jubilee, reporters lined the red carpet like it was the Oscars and there was enough silicone in the room for a San Fernando Valley porn convention. Detroit couldn’t do this; no celebrity beyond Dancing With The Stars is going to venture anywhere near Cobo Hall in the deep freeze of January. Nor could Los Angeles; the locals are so inured against such events that, unless Lindsay Lohan is going to have an inebriated nipple slip, nobody would show up. It was, as the New York Times bragged, it was “one of the more outlandish product reveals at any recent auto show.”

Somewhere in there, a new car was introduced. And, while everyone can appreciate New York’s flair, the big questions on everyone’s lips was why would anyone introduce the king of off-roading in North America’s most densely populated city?

Well, as it turns out, New York City is Range Rover’s biggest metropolitan market in the world and the Sport the best selling Range Rover in the United States. Yes, the fastest Range Rover ever (the Sprint sprints from zero to 100 km/h in just 5.3 seconds, Range Rover says) being popular in the land of the perpetual traffic jam is ironic but so is the need for 850 millimetres of wading depth in a city where green spaces are as rare as easy-going traffic cops.

I suppose the justification could be that New York’s tragically pockmarked streets reward Range Rover’s off-road-oriented, long travel suspension (and can a “New York City” setting for the company’s trademark Sport’s Terrain Response system be far behind), but how does something only slightly smaller than the Queen Mary become almost as ubiquitous a sight on Fifth Avenue as the world-famous yellow cab?

Land Rover would first argue that the new Sport’s dramatic weight loss thanks to its now aluminum unibody frame actually makes it a smaller vehicle, but the truth is that New Yorkers, despite the congested streets, seem to like like their automobiles writ large. S-Class Benzes are a plague on Soho streets and big, boxy G-Wagens are almost as common as Priuses. New York is be the city that never sleeps and it seems that a lot of those nocturnals like prowling its mean streets in imposing luxury utes.